Panel 16: Alternative socialities in and beyond Oceania

Coordinator(s)

Dominik Schieder, Daniela Kraemer

Session presentation

Epeli Hau’ofa writes that Pacific Islanders are ‘enlarging their world as they go’ (1994:155). Indeed, the people of contemporary Oceania are moving in unprecedented distances and frequencies throughout the Pacific and beyond. Central to this movement has been the reorganization of Pacific Islander sociality. For many rural-urban migrants, transnational migrants, people who have moved between islands and people with urban life-styles, the centrality of a place-based sociality is quickly changing. Paying particular attention to the ‘dynamic’ and ‘interactive’ (Long and Moore 2012) social categories Pacific Islanders employ when navigating self and belonging, this panel aims to explore the socialities Pacific Islanders create as they move and dwell beyond their place of origin. We invite ethnographically driven papers focused on “alternative socialities” within Oceania and beyond. Topics could include new models of relatedness, friendship, community, neighbourhoods, and fictive kinship, among others. The aim of this panel is to contribute not only to an increased understanding of contemporary Pacific Islander sociality but also to help build a more comprehensive theory of sociality.

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